Re:Rolling your own crypto: Everything you need to build AES...
by feanaro on Wednesday July 13, 2022 @06:42AM
(#32080923)
The "don't roll your own crypto" is a mantra mostly useful for deciding what to put into production, not as a general ban on even touching the stuff before you become some kind of mythical, long-bearded, tome-possessing wizard.
I thought this was pretty obvious but I guess this important context was not sufficiently disseminated given the prevalence of the latter position.
Re:Rolling your own crypto: Everything you need to build AES...
by bowsamic on Wednesday July 13, 2022 @07:27AM
(#32081210)
Almost all mantras that are stated in absolutes will be accepted by the public in every single possible way. Unfortunately, and I know it sounds unbelievable, for a lot of people it really has become "don't even think of learning about crypto", not just "don't use your own crypto in prod"
None of this is something that hobby cryptographers can't do. In fact, there is no real difference between "professional" and hobby cryptographers. Many of the professional ones started as hobby cryptographers, and there are plenty of allegedly professional "cryptographers" who do not have sufficient experience in cryptanalysis. Moreover, anybody can make a fairly secure Feistel cipher, for example, it's just hard to create an efficient one. Note that proofs of security either don't exist or are based on unreasonable assumptions. Cryptography is still mostly a black art, not a science.
In a nutshell, you really shouldn't reinforce the "don't roll your own crypto" mantra. It just means you'll get less skilled cryptographers in the end. Bear in mind that nearly all debacles in cryptography were caused by professional cryptographers.